Big East (Soon to Be Renamed) And ESPN Announce TV Deal

The soon-to-be former Big East Conference announced Tuesday that it finalized a media agreement with ESPN, but the first question posed to the commissioner had nothing to do with TV coverage.

MIke Aresco's league needs a new name and the world of college athletics is wondering what the organization will be called. UConn's new league should have a name by late April or early May, Aresco said on a conference call, and the process of picking a brand is ongoing.

But Aresco offered no candidates.

"We know we need to move expeditiously," Aresco said. "We've been very deliberate about this. We have a process, we have branding groups we're working with. We've developed a process where we're going to obviously go through names that reflect what our conference is, what our conference wants to be, what we're aspiring to be."

And they're apparently not aspiring to be America 12 or something like that. That name floated through cyberspace last week and the test bubble was quickly popped by snarky fans, reporters and observers.

So the search for the perfect name and snazzy logo will continue for the next month or so. Aresco said he's consulting member presidents and athletic directors, and he might seek the opinions of folks at ESPN. But the Bristol-based network, which has worked with the Big East for more than three decades, isn't choosing the conference's next brand name.

"I gave up naming things when my daughter was born 11 years ago," said Burke Magnus, ESPN's senior vice president for college sports programming.

Whatever the new name, the league will have an old, familiar partner broadcasting its games. The agreement with ESPN was reached weeks ago, but Aresco had to negotiate the exit of seven non-football schools before conference members could ratify the deal.

Meanwhile, the seven Catholic schools will announce their media deal with Fox Sports Wednesday in New York. The new Big East is also expected to announce its postseason tournament contract with Madison Square Garden.

The conference they are leaving agreed to a contract with ESPN that runs through 2019-20 and financial terms were not released, although ESPN.com reports the overall value is $126 million. The original agreement was for $130 million, but the value decreased after the basketball schools left.

The deal was negotiated by NBC Sports, but matched by ESPN as the existing rights holder. ESPN.com reports that the deal can be terminated if two schools from a group made up of UConn, Cincinnati, Temple and Houston leave or if one of those schools and any other member leave.

UConn and Cincinnati are considered targets for the ACC if that conference experiences more defections and needs replacements.

The conference will also announce a second-tier basketball agreement with a network — expected to be CBS — next week. That deal is reportedly valued at $2 million a year, which will bring the overall TV revenue to $20 million a year.

That will give each member about $1.8 million a year in revenue, which is more than $2 million less than what UConn received under the previous TV contract. Aresco has acknowledged that the deal isn't a financial windfall, but says he is happy to still have national exposure through ESPN and he believes the new league can establish itself before a broad audience.

Joining UConn, Cincinnati, South Florida and Temple in the new league are Houston, SMU, Central Florida, Memphis, Tulane, East Carolina, Navy and likely another school. Tulsa has been rumored.

"There's been a fair amount of turmoil in the college world and we've come through it," Aresco said. "We're in a good place and we're really excited about moving forward with our friends at ESPN."

The Big East's last TV deal with ESPN was worth $200 million, with another $54 million coming from CBS. Conference presidents voted to turn down an ESPN offer of a $1.17 billion deal in 2011, instead seeking a more lucrative contract. But schools such as Syracuse and Pittsburgh announced they were leaving for the ACC just a few months later and the media money soon evaporated.

By comparison, the ACC's ESPN contract signed last year is worth $3.6 billion and brings each member $17.1 million a year. But the ACC is a venerable league with a long history while Aresco's conference is starting from scratch.

"We're excited about the upside here," Magnus said. "They're going to be able to be flexible and be opportunistic and help grow their programs. We like to think that we can play a role in helping."

The conference's current football contract with ESPN expires after the 2013 season. All sports — football, basketball and Olympic sports — will be covered under the same agreement by the 2014-15 academic year.

Under the new agreement, all conference-controlled football games will be televised. The previous contract allowed for syndication and local telecasts of football games.

Between ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and ABC, the minimum number of televised games will outnumber the nationally televised games in 2013, the last year of the existing contract. In 2015, the conference expects to add a 12th team and stage a conference championship game that will be televised by ESPN or ABC. Aresco said the game will be played on a campus site.

All conference-controlled men's basketball games will also be televised. A minimum of 107 games — or more than 63 percent — will be broadcast nationally.

The entire postseason conference tournament will also be shown nationally, with the title game on ESPN or ABC. The women's basketball tournament championship will be on ESPN or ESPN2.

UConn has a relationship with SNY but it's unclear how the conference's new contract will impact that agreement.